


The Tale of the Kilt

by Mungo_of_Maundery



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Dress Up, Gen, Kilts, Ridiculous outfits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6875383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mungo_of_Maundery/pseuds/Mungo_of_Maundery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor offers to help Jamie find a new kilt after his original shrinks in the wash; they both get a trifle distracted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of the Kilt

**Author's Note:**

> I know at least two people have remarked to me on the somewhat alarming shortness of Jamie's kilt in certain episodes so I decided to write a fic about how it happened that so much space above his knees got seen, but it morphed into this...
> 
> I've had this rattling around in my folder for nearly a year and just cannot get it at a point where I'm really happy with it so I decided to just roll with it and post it anyway :)

"Doctor!" Jamie's outraged voice sounded down the corridor.

The Doctor looked up from the test tubes in mild concern. Jamie appeared in the doorway, looking aggrieved. "Whatever's the matter, Jamie?"

Jamie took a few shuffling steps forward into the room, then looked up at the Doctor self-consciously from under his hair.

"Well? Not done anything wrong, have you?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly. His fingers drummed on the worktop merrily.

"'Course not! But look."

The Doctor looked him up and down and still failed to see anything amiss. 

"The kilt, Doctor!" 

"What's wrong with it?"

Jamie groaned. "Look at it!"

The Doctor squinted, head on one side. "Is it... a bit shorter than usual?"

"Aye, that's what I'm trying to tell ye! I put it in that wee box with the round window in it-"

" - the washing machine, yes - "

" - aye, that as spins it all around and cleans it. And it came out like this!"

"Well, it's not so very short. Hardly revealing, if you know what I mean."

Jamie looked down at himself, then snorted. "My father'd die o' shame if he could see it. I look like a bairn! It's no' decent, I tell ye!" He could feel his cheeks turning red, and hated it.

The Doctor managed not to laugh. "But you have very nice knees, Jamie! With knees like that you should be proud to show them off!"

Jamie made a noise of disgust at the Doctor's flippant approach to this serious situation and, throwing his hands in the air, turned to walk out. The Doctor called him back. "If you like, I can ask Ben or Polly to show you the wardrobe and we'll see if we can't find you another. Goodness knows, there must be a kilt somewhere in this place."

"I cannae be seen like this! It's outrageous!"

"Alright, not Ben and Polly, then. But I can see you." The Doctor shuffled his beakers and scientific paraphernalia into a more secure position on the table, removed his latex gloves and made his way to the door where Jamie stood.

"Aye, well that's different, isn't it?" They began down the corridor. Eventually, Jamie mumbled bashfully, "I don't mind ye seeing my knees so much."

The Doctor chuckled. "Quite."

"And ye don't laugh at me for not knowing how tae work the washin' machine."

 

The TARDIS' wardrobe was a huge, cavernous room, full of clothes from various planets and time periods. They were stacked in piles, hung in rows upon rows of coatrails; hats, scarves and umbrellas perched piecemeal on various mismatched hatstands. Jamie wondered briefly why the Doctor always looked so out of place when he certainly had a wide enough variety of clothes to fit in - well - just about anywhere. Then his gaze fell affectionately on the Doctor, hovering just inside the door, gazing thoughtfully around the room in his drooping bow-tie and his shapeless frock-coat and his well-worn shoes, and his funny wee trousers which always seemed simultaneously too big and too small for him. Jamie couldn't really imagine him in anything else, and on balance didn't care to. This was the Doctor, how he was supposed to look.

"Well, come on then, help me look for something," the Doctor reproached.

 

"Truth be told, Jamie," the Doctor said amiably as he rummaged through seemingly endless clothes. "I don't believe your kilt was ever intended to be washed in a washing machine. It's far too old. It's practically an antique compared to the things Polly and Ben chuck in there to clean. You're lucky it's anywhere near your knees."

"Hey!" Jamie threw a large, furry hat at the Doctor in outrage. "My kilt isnae an antique! I'll have you know, it was new from the--" 

But the Doctor was no longer listening. He had seized the hat that Jamie had thrown and jammed it delightedly onto his head. Jamie groaned. He should have remembered the Doctor's propensity for hats. 

The Doctor examined himself in the mirror, striking a dramatic pose in the newfound hat. "I think I look rather dashing."

"Aye well, ye'll need this tae complete the look," Jamie said dryly, dragging a feather boa from one of the hangers.

The sarcasm seemed lost on the Doctor. Still gazing at his reflection, he tugged it from Jamie's hands and swept it around his shoulders. He made an appreciative noise, appraising his reflection critically. A glint of mischief lit his eyes and then he was giving a cry of joy and springing forwards into the rows of hangers and heaps of clothes. Jamie put his face in his hands. 

"Jamie! Oh my word, Jamie!"

Jamie looked up. Surely the Doctor couldn't get into trouble in his own wardrobe? He probably could. Jamie set off after him, pushing aside a set of rather fancy leather trousers and almost tripping over a battered headdress adorned with orange feathers.

"Doctor?" he called, half worried, half annoyed. "Doctor, where are you?"

The Doctor sprang upon him bearing some hideously bright neon legwarmers which he thrust delightedly into Jamie's face. They smelled of mothballs.

"An' what's this?" Jamie asked, stretching out the heinous woollens.

"Legwarmers, Jamie! You must have seen legwarmers before. I rather think they were all the rage in your time period..."

"Aye," Jamie said slightly doubtfully. "I've no' seen them in such a colour before, though."

"Oh, and look at these." The Doctor was already gone again. "I'd forgotten all about these... ah, that belonged to Vicki. Goodness, that old thing; given to me by Marco Polo..." He was lost in fishing out various clothes which he alternately wrapped around himself or passed on to Jamie, who either put them away somewhere with a look of mild horror, or sneakily donned when the Doctor wasn't looking.

 

Finally, they made their way back to the mirror with their haul: the Doctor had swapped the furry hat for a large, elaborate ladies' bonnet, and wore his feather boa with glittering, pointed shoes and a wide red cummerbund.

"Well, what do you think?" the Doctor asked Jamie with a sideways glance.

"We look... very interesting," Jamie said before sputtering out into giggles at the sight of himself in a transparent plastic mac with its loud pattern of orange, green and yellow flowers, a very solid velvet riding hat from the 1970s, and of course the neon legwarmers which he'd given up fighting against.

The Doctor reprimanded him with a half-suppressed smile, batting him lightly with his ostrich-feather fan. "Oh shush. My dignity remains - completely intact -" But then the smile split and he was laughing, too, throwing his head back and cackling in a way that set the feathers on his boa quivering.

 

When Polly and Ben's interest was piqued by the shrieks of laughter coming from the wardrobe, they walked in on a most peculiar sight indeed.


End file.
